deployment approaches. The
researchers gave 31 Ma rine
reservists 24 hours of training
in Sta nley’s eight-week pro-
gra m. Seventeen Ma rines and
12 civilians ser ved as controls.
The researchers tested work-
ing memory capacity at the
beginning and end.
Civilians’ working mem-
ory improved slightly. The
control group of Marines’
working memory became
notably worse as deployment
approached, consistent with
earlier obser vations of the toll
that pre-deployment takes.
Marines receiving mindful-
ness training who practiced
extensively experienced
improved working memory.
The more time a Marine
spent practicing mindfulness
meditation, the greater the
sense of well-being, which
Jha believes is a direct effect
of mindfulness.
The key finding, however,
was that the more a Marine
practiced mindfulness, the
less severe the anxiety, fear,
and other negative emotions
while the higher the level of
positive emotions. Crucially,
that effect correlated with
improvements in working
memory. That is, mindful-
ness training and practice
improved working memory,
and better working memory
reduced negative emotions.
These findings “suggest
that practicing mindfulness
might allow you to build a
working-memory ‘reser ve,’”
Jha says. “By improving your
working memory capacity,
you might be able to protect
against both cognitive and
emotiona l impairments.”
The result is somewhat
ironic, in that one of the most
robust findings in the science
of stress is that high stress
murders memory, both work-
ing memory and long-term
memory. Yet by going at the
relationship between stress
and memory sort of ass-back-
ward—improve working
memory and see what hap-
pens to the negative feelings
triggered by stress—this work
has deepened our under-
standing of the relationship
between cognition and emo-
tion. Mindfulness training
improves working memory.
Better working memory
enables better regulation of
emotion—less flying off the
handle, less terror at the pros-
pect of deploying to Iraq.
How? Researchers have
identified several possibili-
ties. The better your working
memory, the better other
elements of cognition. As a
result, you can successfully
filter out thoughts of despair,
steer your at tention to avoid
the excessive rumination that
can bring on depression, and
draw on memories to reframe
negative experiences as no
worse than neutral.
Mindfulness training
might protect troops from
post-traumatic stress by
improving their ability to
quash negative emotions and
strengthen emotional control.
It might also provide greater
cognitive resources for
members of the militar y “to
act ethically a nd effectively
in the morally ambiguous and
emotionally challenging ” war
zones where they find them-
selves, Jha and her colleagues
wrote in the journal Emotion.
The work applies not only to
the military. A 2012 study,
led by Michael Mrazek in the
psychological and brain sci-
ences department at UC Santa
Ba rbara, showed that mind-
fulness training improved
working memory capacity,
reduced mind wandering, and
increased performance for
people taking the Graduate
Record Exam.
We’re not all heading into
combat or fighting to enter
grad school, but think of what
mindfulness regimens might
do for police and firefighters,
teachers, a nd medical stu-
dents. And, really, all of us. ●
August 2014 mindful 27
August 2014 mindful 27